Tagalog vs. English

G

Gracey

Registered User
Someone made a snarky little remark that the baby's first language was going to be Tagalog! They were joking, but it annoyed me, since I've made a huge effort and financial hit to take a half-year off of work, and I do almost all of the babycare myself, including those awful night feeds, even though we have a helper.

Anyway... I was wondering if your helpers spoke to your babies in English, or their native tongue. My helper does alot of baby-talk / babbling, which I guess is OK now, but will have to stop -- mostly because it drives me crazy! But she also babbles to her in Tagalog.

It's not a big deal. We're an English household and our child will naturally become a native English speaker with or without the helper. But still... should I ask her to stop speaking to the child in Tagalog all the time?
 
I wish I had your problem. I requested then begged and even threatened our helpers, wanting them to talk Tagalog to our ones early on but they just wouldn't. They would start and then 1 or 2 days later, they would go back to English.

If I were you, I'd encourage it. Why stop it at all? Its a benefit and wont hurt your baby one bit.
 
personally, i really wish my helper had spoken to my kids in tagalog. they already have english from mummy and cantonese from daddy... so, tagalog would have been a 3rd language.

i think languages will ONLY open doors, NEVER close them! so, the more languages they know, the better!
 
Our helper speaks in English with our kids, and Tagalog with her friends or on the phone. My son has managed to pick some words from her conversations. The other day he asked her "what's happening" and "how are you" in Tagalog, she was very surprised and I think it's great ! He's asking her sometimes how to say some things and I've encouraged her to tell him.
 
My cousin had an English tutor who told my aunt to make sure the helper doesn't speak English to my cousin because the helper's English will undo the tutor's work.
 
Agree with those who say that the child picking up Tagalog or any other language is a pretty cool. When I was growing up my mum kept trying to get our helpers to speak their native language to us and they just wouldn't, so we ended up monolingual which is a bummer. In India, most of the help don't speak English so the kids end up picking up their language but as long as the parents speak English and they go to English-medium school, their English is fine and they land up with an extra language as a bonus.

Another thing people are overly concerned about is the child picking up a Filipino accent. First, why is that a problem? Second, there are so many families with Filipino helpers who are the primary caregiver and I see very few non-Filipino kids with Filipino accents. There may be the odd word that get mispronounced but that can be easily corrected.
 
that's ridiculous. i tutored for years. yes, there were times that the child had learned incorrectly, but the vast majority of those problems were introduced from poor teachers at school, not from the helper at home.
 
Hi all -- Sorry if my comment wasn't clear.
That snarky comment was not against Tagalog. The person who said it was making an implication that, since I was going back to work, I'd be a bad mother for leaving the child with a Filipina helper. But that's a whole other post!

I have no problem with kids learning all sorts of languages -- our baby will probably speak English, Cantonese and French just from living in our household. And I'm not worried about a "Filipino accent". There's nothing wrong with different accents. And, anyway, kids usually pick up their parents' native accents anyway.

I guess it was the Tagalog baby-babbling that seems to go on all day long. It annoys me personally, but the Baby doesn't care. I mean, she's just a baby!

I was just curious what other helpers spoke to their charges here.

I've also read that it's better for people to speak to children in their native tongues, instead of struggling to speak bad or accented second languages. That's because children need to learn basic verbal communication first, and the details of language later, doesn't matter if it's Swahili or Ancient Greek.

I often hear local parents struggling to speak to their kids in broken, heavily accented English. I want to tell them just to speak in Cantonese -- why are we ashamed of our own language? Isn't communicating easily with your child more important than trying to teach them a "more marketable" language?
 
Did you happen to read the New York Times article posted a few weeks ago titled Hearing Bilingual:How babies sort out language?

I found it to be an interesting and helpful read. At this stage in development, the more languages your baby can hear--whether it's babble or not--the more open neurologically the baby will remain--which has impacts not only on language acquisition but all other areas of learning. Hearing more languages keeps your baby's brain more flexible.

My helper speaks English mostly with my son but she does have an accent but just yesterday my son (4-years-old) corrected her pronunciation and wouldn't give up until she pronounced the word correctly--he was doing it innocently and not to be cheeky. He just kept saying, "No, Auntie, it's not this way, it's THIS way." And when she said the word correctly he giggled and was very happy about it. I don't mind at all if she chooses to speak another langauge with him--I think that is way cool.
 
Ah good question about what language the helper speaks when we're not there. I have no idea! She speaks to my son in English when we're around.
 
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